


Paper Cranes

by orphan_account



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-15
Updated: 2010-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. They didn't stop the explosion, but it's not quite the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Cranes

  
_How do you stop an exploding man?_

You don't. You run away, you drive away, you teleport away. You fly away.

There is no red wire, no blue wire to cut although severing his arteries or his veins would be a very effective way of stopping the explosion. Pulmonary, jugular, aorta- but then it hardly matters which one you go for, it'll heal anyways.

So Nathan left his little brother ( _Go_ , Peter had said, his voice deeper and more persuasive than Nathan had ever thought possible. _Go_ ). He took off, flew up ten miles into the air, where he hovered, gasping for breath and soaked to the bone, and watched as a nuclear bomb obliterated New York City. _Suicide Bomber Takes Out New York_. Oh, the politicians were going to have a field day with this one. Nathan wondered how many new wars Peter had started.

After a few hours of hovering, he realized that the radiation was frying him up here just as much as it would get him down there, so he touched down. He had no idea what he was going to find, but it never crossed his mind to just fly away. He had to see for himself.

And then, just because things weren't fucked up enough as it was, Peter was alive.

He was literally _blue_ , his skin was puckered and swollen with horrific blisters, and his left leg stopped at the knee, but he was alive. Nathan watched as blood began flowing through his brother's veins, as his leg grew back. The blisters disappeared. It was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Everyone was dead except for Nathan and Peter, and Claire who looked untouched except for her hair, which was singed to her scalp. It would take years to grow back. Claire's gift was about survival, not cosmetics.

The little group of survivors- the nuclear family, Claire said (Nathan didn't have it in him to laugh) -left New York, and fled to Canada. They rented a two-bedroom apartment, got a cat. Nathan discreetly drew on the family funds to pay for Claire's schooling. Peter puttered around the apartment, talking to the cat and recovering from the explosion. (He never used any powers; he only flew in his most unguarded moments).

Claire never commented on the fact that her father and her uncle shared a room. It was economical, she told herself. Right. Peter was her uncle, and he could survive a nuclear blast. Her father could fly. What they did behind closed doors was just one more weird thing to deal with.

She learned how to make paper cranes from a friend at school, and she taught Peter how to make them. He was cool like that, she could have fun with him. Nathan just raised his eyebrows at them, and went back to his newspaper. Claire pretended not to notice when he picked up Peter's cranes and studied them as though they would explain why he could fly.

Peter gave her a book for her sixteenth birthday: _Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes_. Nathan gave her a trust fund.

Hiro and Ando found them a few months later, teleported into Nathan's bedroom so that Nathan, reaching for his gun with one hand and pulling the duvet over Peter with the other ( _hide it_ ), woke up to Hiro's overexcited Flying man!

Peter surfaced groggily, and squinted at the Japanese man sitting on his bed. Nathan didn't seem worried, so it must be alright. The man turned to him. "Peter Petrelli! No more hair?" Hiro asked, and Peter ran a hand over his newly shorn head. His fingers danced over his scar in a movement that was becoming habitual. "No more hair," he agreed. Then he remembered where he had seen Hiro before.

"It's you!" he said, suddenly awake.

"Yes," Hiro said, "and I know how to stop you going _boom._ "

Peter and Nathan sat up, and listened.


End file.
